Poached Chicken Roulade is a gentle way of cooking chicken breast that gives glorious flavour whilst retaining a delicate texture. Sliced cold it looks as though you could never have made it yourself – but you can!

This method relies on poaching the chicken and therefore it keeps the meat tender. If the roulade is chilled it will slice thinly, taste delicious and look colourful.

Cooks Know How: Chicken is such an affordable product and in this case it is cooked in a different way, by poaching rather than roasting. You will be pleased with the speed in which you can create this meat dish. You will use your knife with skill to slice the chicken breasts. You can then arrange those slices to form the base of the roulade. Once you have done that the adding flavour is the name of the game and using lemon zest and grated garlic and seasoning is very therapeutic. Finally, you place a central section of herb and garlic cheese bedded onto fresh basil leaves. You will feel very hands on and creative as you roll the chicken to form a sausage shape and secure the ends firmly by twisting. I would be surprised if you do not feel this is really a rather special way of cooking chicken.

Next Time

Here is a blank slate for you to work on. Chicken in itself is fairly bland and needs to have some interesting flavours and textures added. You can think of some coloured ingredients that will contrast with the white chicken such as peppers or soft fruit dates or even a layer of green wasabi. Follow this with some fresh herbs such as coriander, mint or parsley. Your choice of cheese will add fat and moistness so it could be a blue cheese that you like or soft crumbly stilton. You can make a whole new recipe every time you cook the chicken this way.